ANNOUNCEMENT: The AFTABOSS ‘Blogger Of The Year’ and Launch of ‘Piece-4-Peace Challenge —2018’

THE AFTABOSS ‘BLOGGER OF THE YEAR’ AND LAUNCH OF ‘PIECE-4-PEACE CHALLENGE—2018’

On behalf of AFTABOSS Internet’ional Team Leaders and all our esteemed South Sudanese readers, we wish you a very happy and peaceful 2018.

As it will be our tradition, we hereby officially and proudly bring to your attention the best bloggers of the Year 2017, as promised last year. The last quarter of 2017 saw heightened activities about South Sudan and their resultant activism by our bloggers and other campaigners. The works of our bloggers have been captured and recorded on www.aftaboss.wordpress.com.

On December 9, 2017, precisely 30 days ago from the date of the release of the best results of our bloggers; from a host of well researched, structured and written pieces on issues affecting the people of South Sudan, our readers quickly made a choice for their favorite; and our editors agreed by the seemingly unanimous decision of our Facebook readers. The following individuals have particularly stood out for our editors;

WINNER: Sebit William Ker Tony

Winning Article: “If You Were The President, What Would You Do Differently?”

The criteria used for choosing the AFTABOSS’s South Sudanese blogger of the year included: publishing of the blog piece, number of hits (readers) on the blog, nomination by readers and vetting by the Aftaboss Blogathon Editorial Board (ABEB) headed by the Chief Moderator.

The overall winner of the three finalists is crowned as ‘The Blogger of the Year’ and his/her winning article is entered into the very final AFTABOSS Blogathon (blogging marathon), which is open to the public in the name of ‘The Piece-4-Peace Challenge’, and its final award dubbed ‘The Noble Piece Prize’.

NB: Whereas Sebit William Ker, now declared as ‘The Blogger Of The Year’, has automatically qualified for the ‘Piece-4-Peace Challenge’ contest by his article now republished as the first entry of the challenge on January 9, 2018, Madam Lucy Ayak has qualified to participate afresh from the effect of this notice.

However, Gai Mayen Luk will not participate in the Challenge as he is hereby appointed to the Association’s board as a legal adviser. This appointment is by virtue of him being the ‘Internet’ionnel of Honour’, a blogger promoted to The Board or Management as an Aftaboss ‘Personnel Of The Year’, accruing from his general conduct throughout 2017. For this and other reasons, Mr. Gai was the winner of the ‘New Kid On The Blog’ (See more explanations on all these titles below).

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‘THE PIECE-4-PEACE CHALLENGE, 2017/2018’

This year (2017) is unique in such a way that the winning blog is the topic of the Challenge, thus:

Topic Title: ‘IF I WERE PRESIDENT…’ and then the writer adds his heading…’ I WOULD…’

Campaign Theme: ‘PIECE-4-PEACE CHALLENGE –2018’

Award Name: ‘THE NOBLE PIECE PRIZE’

Duration/Deadline: 09 – 18 JANUARY 2018

Participants: Public (any blogger, writer, activist, etc. of South Sudanese origin all over the world).

Organizers: The AFTABOSS Blogathon Editorial Board (ABEB)

NB: Guidelines and other public information will be availed separately on the blog by ABEB team.

THE SEVEN AWARDS BY AFTABOSS BLOGATHON BOARD

In total, the Association is running the following seven (7) award categories, which were officially launched in December last year (2017):

‘New Kid on the Blog’is a promotional admission post from Facebook and other mediums. Our winning blog posts range from 300 to 3,000 words. That means any Facebook, Viber, Whatsapp, Messenger, Google Group, etc. post of that length can qualify and will be considered as a full blog.

‘Blogger of the Day’: This will be a winning article (post) recommended and selected from any Facebook post in particular or any other Social Media post by any reader or writer . We have criteria by which the recommended articles are passed through to qualify for ‘Blogger of the Week’. All published articles on our Aftaboss Internet’ionnel Blog are winners of ‘Blogger of the Day’.

Blogger of the Week. Like ‘The Blogger of the Day’, this will be the winning post of the week recommended or nominated by readers. A reader must have been admitted to our official group in order to be able to recommend or post a nominated blogger here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/413209488738387/

‘Blogger of the Month’: We use the same criteria by selecting the winning post from the 4 running weeks of blogging.

‘Internet’ionnel of Honour’: Like the ‘Employee of the Month’ in a company, the ‘internet’ionnel’ is our top personnel of the month. This is not public, it is administrative by selection. This title will be derived from the ‘Bloggers of the Month, Week and Day’. In short, it is a promotion to the Management and Board of the Association. This is done through the Aftaboss Blogathon Editorial Board (ABEB) and voting on every 9th day of January.

‘Blogger of the Year’ with ‘The Noble Piece Prize’ award. Thisis the overall annual blogger whose award will be called ‘The Noble Piece Prize’ (not to be confused with the international ‘Nobel Peace Prize’). The ‘piece’ (written article or blog) will be selected through random public nomination from the total published articles of the year. This will come from our official bloggers whose articles are published on the main blog, and who have fulfilled other criteria of membership such as joining a Facebook group and following the conducts required of our Internet’ionnel (Aftaboss personnel).

Secondly, The Aftaboss Blogathon Editorial Board (ABEB) welcomes any other blogger or writer who participates in the finally draw of ‘Piece-4-Peace Blogathon’, bloggers’ competition on topical issue (theme) of the year, whose overall winner will be crowned with the title of ‘Blogger of the Year’ and awarded ‘The Noble Piece Prize’.

The Aftaboss Piece-4-Peace Blogathon will kick off on the CPA/Referendum Day, which is January 9, 2018. The final winners will have their entries published in an essay book with the title of the winning blog article of the year. For this year (2017/2018), the title has been derived from The Blogger of the year’s article: ‘If I Were President…’.

NB: The total number of qualified articles will rhyme with the final figure of that particular year i.e. the blogathon finalists of the year 2018 will be 18, meaning the book will contain 18 essays of the total submissions and publications. The 2019 challenge will have 19 articles, 2020 with 20 and so on in that ascending progression.

The Blogathon. This term refers to all the competitive categories of the blog marathon (a collection of all winners and published articles on social media). So it is not a definite contest but a general term for AFTABOSS Internet’ional annual operations on the blog and organization.

As mentioned above, the biggest contest of the Aftaboss Blogathon is dubbed: ‘Piece-4-Peace Challenge’, which is going to be rolled out in January 2018. Its sister challenge is referred as the ‘#Streettweets211’, in other words, the ‘Aftaboss Twittathon’ with the final draw of 211 tweets from January to July. The ‘Twittathon’, like the ‘Blogathon’ will be rolled out from January 9 every year. So, be ready to participate, right from today by following us on:

Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/413209488738387/

Our Community Page: https://www.facebook.com/assk4info/

Our Twitter Handle: https://twitter.com/aftaboss

AFTABOSS Internet’ional was founded in 2012 to guard the netizens and guide the citizens of South Sudan and other members on their rights to freedom of expression and association, and bring South Sudanese online community together to spot and support their latent talents and their nascent nation.

For an article to be published on the blog or any other official inquiry, please, send it to: aftabossteam@gmail.com, and copy the editors, undersigned.

YOU’RE WELL? COME!

Dear Ready Reader, Since it is my belief that a good reader is a good leader, I cordially welcome and encourage you to explore my literal mind and exploit my literary mine in this poetic wordware. I hope you are not that pessimistic critic – not a somber leader but a sober reader – who is ever ready to give me their unique critiques on my Pennique techniques; just as my previous readers had with me as their text collector (or corrector and connector) of news, views, interviews, reviews, overviews, previews, purviews, and all the free views expressed in the process of my rioting by writing when my nascent nation is trudging through her era of error. To be Pennically jealous and Penniquely zealous, just as I would not want Juba defined and designed with Sheik Zubeir’s architecture, I would not want my pages pasted and passages plastered with Shakespeare’s literature; and neither would I want my messages massaged with Achebe’s achievers flavours, nor my torturous tales tailored with Tutuola's tutorials. Yet again, if this is not understandable – lo, we go!— (From Preface to my poetry book (manuscript, 'The Black Christs of Africa'

Jon Pen

CALLOUS CALLOUT? Well, here is another exercise of excuse. As I put it in one of my blogs on our Independence Day: Too much culture of leading with too little culture of reading is eminently going to murder the ‘baby nation’ at its infancy. During the times of conflict as such, two features are wrongly prominent; rude war literature and crude war economy. Either of these always delays, and almost slays this blog and 'The Black Christs of Africa'— the book and its sequels. Lo we go…! (From Preface to 'The Black Christs of Africa' (manuscript)

Pennavatar

However, what I found out during my six years of a hide-and-seek game with a 'real publisher of books' was but a real publisher of names; of names of those who have already published books. Since I did not have any name, yet, to be published and sold, I just landed on an e-printer and a printer handy, to me, the real publisher of words. In the truest sense of these words, this (Master Text Collector Ltd.) is the real publisher of books; one who looks at the book of a writer and not the writer of a book. Therefore, if I were the president of a ‘Republic of Literatia’, I would make that a decree to publish not the literary pedigree but the literary degree in a very mannered script of every manuscript. Lo, we go…!

Textleak

ABOUTLEAKS:
Of my style as from my works of poetry:

"Well, there is one fact I have to admit from their cynicism, but omit from my Pennicism and commit to our criticism as we trudge along in this world of invention. The fact is, if my work is unconventional, then it is because I did not attend that Literary Convention hosted by patrons and matrons of an ‘Art Convent’– in case of any – during those days when God created the World by the Word in the ‘Universe of Artitecture’. So spare me this deliberate circumvention for my own literary convention conducted in a series of serious conferences only within the circumference of my upper room, call it, Head Hall. Lo, we go…!
So here is another exercise of excuse. As I put it in one of my blogs on our Independence Day: Too much culture of leading with too little culture of reading is eminently going to murder the ‘baby nation’ at its infancy. During the times of conflict as such, two features are wrongly prominent; rude war literature and crude war economy. Either of these always delays, and almost slays, The Black Christs of Africa— this book and its sequels. Lo we go…! "